Joe Thompson: Family Tradition

Released in celebration of Joe Thompson’s eightieth birthday, “Family Tradition” contains some of his very best recordings. Thompson is joined by his cousin Odell and brother Nate, also important figures in the black stringband tradition, and by friends Bob Carlin and Scott Ainslie, playing oldtime piedmont stringband music and gospel songs, including a spectacular festival performance of “Oil in My Vessel.”

Growing up near Mebane, North Carolina, Thompson began fiddling when he was five years old, so determined to play that he unthreaded wires from the screen door to use for fiddle strings. Decades later, Thompson is one of the very last African American fiddlers in the region’s tradition. A North Carolina Folk Heritage winner, he has played piedmont stringband music for audiences around the world.